Chapter Thirteen

It was on now. Reverend Cyrus Evander Milton arrived in Amarillo Texas the night before, and checked in to a suite at the Ambassador Hotel. He had four hours before he had to be at the convention center for the first revival meeting. His crew of volunteers (roadies) had been setting up the venue since six o’clock that morning. The Reverend planned to arrive at the convention center about an hour and a half before his “opening act,” one of the locals, went on stage. He usually gave his sound man and his lighting tech a tip in the form of a big bag of marijuana. They were, after all, just here for the money, not the religious experience. Like him. And it was worthwhile to make sure his sound and light crew were happy working with him. They were, of course, under strict instructions not to smoke weed anywhere near the revivals themselves. Even if they approached the revivals as rock concerts, the people who paid to be there weren’t, and most of them had a dim view of drugs, alcohol and cigarettes.

For the next couple of hours, though, he would just hang around in his hotel suite. Dinner was going to be catered at the convention center, so there was no need to order room service. He’d already read the newspaper. He was saving his stash of books for traveling. He hated TV.

He was, in a word, bored.

First night out and bored already, he thought. He thought about heading over to the convention center early, realized he would just be bored and in the way if he did, and elected not to.

Instead, he lay down on the bed and took a nap.

The Reverend woke up, seemingly seconds later, to a frantic pounding on the door of his hotel room. He looked at the clock and saw it was six forty three in the evening. By now, the audience would mostly be inside, talking and waiting for the first preacher to begin.

“Shit!” Reverend Milton said. He rolled out of bed and stomped over to the door in a white t-shirt, boxers and black dress socks. He peeked out and saw Grace waiting outside. She began to pound on the door again.

“Hang on,” the Reverend called through the door. He looked around, spotted a pair of pants and quickly pulled them on. Then he went back to the door and let Grace in.

“You’re not even dressed yet? What the fuck?” Grace said by way of greeting. She shut the door as Cyrus scrambled around the room grabbing his clothes and shoes.

“Ten minutes,” he said, and hustled into the bathroom to get ready. He oiled his hair, combed it back, dressed as quickly as he could in a flashy brown suit and went out into the suite again to make sure he looked perfect in the full-length mirror. He put on his shoes, grabbed his bible and his cross necklace, and said, “Ready, let’s go.”

They arrived at the convention center five minutes before the Reverend was scheduled to begin his sermon. He just had time to make it inside, greet the other preachers, and get to the stage. The preacher on stage (was his name John? James? Jerry?) was visibly relieved to see Reverend Milton standing to the side of the stage.

“Everyone, please give Reverend Milton a warm welcome!” he said, and walked over to greet the Reverend. The congregation went nuts, cheering and clapping their hands and stomping on the floor. Reverend Milton embraced Reverend What’s-his-head, then took the microphone and strode to the center of the stage.

“Good evening, brothers and sisters,” he began, and went on to weave his magic for the next two hours. He sang. He preached about heaven and hell. He preached about the power of faith. He preached about being saved. He spoke in tongues (as did many in the audience).

He collected a hell of a lot of cash.

Reverend Milton generally didn’t even look at the evening’s take until he was back at the hotel, in private. Tonight was not an exception. His assistants and ushers had collected the money and given it to Grace, who gave it to Cyrus in a paper bag as they drove back to the Hotel. The bag was heavy tonight. He tried to put it out of his mind; if he didn’t think he had a gigantic bag of money in his pocket, he wouldn’t look like he was carrying a bag full of money. Or so he told himself.

Back in the safety of his hotel suite, Reverend Milton put the bag with the evening’s take in his room’s safe and locked it. He’d deal with it after he’d had a shower and had gone over his sermon notes for the next evening.

The Reverend took a good long shower. Being under the stage lights would make a camel sweat, and Reverend Milton was nothing if not energetic from the moment he stepped on stage to the second he left the building. His suits generally needed to be dry cleaned after a single night; no one wants to shake hands with a Reverend reeking of old body odour and hot brylcreem. Fortunately, he had a large wardrobe with him, and the hotels he stayed in almost always had a dry cleaning service.

His sermon notes were almost the same every night. It wasn’t like he was the Grateful Dead, with a caravan of devoted followers chasing him from city to city. Of course, if they did follow him, they’d probably still be happy. Reverend Milton’s services were ninety percent off the cuff anyway. The key was to keep his audience excited, full of passion and eager to give donations.

When he could no longer resist the song of the bag of cash, singing to him from inside the safe, he got up from the table, retrieved the money, and went back to the table. Reverend Milton had a love / hate relationship with his money. He didn’t feel guilty, precisely. After all, his congregation loved every minute of the experience, and left feeling full of the holy spirit. Donating made them happy. And the donations were certainly a good source of income, but he made even more money from his merchandise table. Almost everyone bought a CD of his sermons, or perhaps one of the new DVDs. He also had t-shirts so people could show off to their church friends that they’d been to his revival every year since he’d started doing them. More interesting, and far more profitable, were his collection of sacred items for sale. He referred to this stuff, internally, as glow in the dark Jesuses, although he generally only gave the plastic Jesuses to kids. The growns ups in the crowd, however, could buy prayer clothes for the low cost of fifteen dollars. A prayer cloth was a white dishcloth Reverend Milton bought for fifty cents each, and he (or, more precisely, one of his volunteers) would then cut the rag into eight or more pieces. Reverend Milton would bless them (by the hundreds), and his congregation couldn’t get enough of them. They frequently asked him to sign their prayer clothes, which he cheerfully did.

Reverend Milton opened the bag, and dumped its contents out on the table. There was a lot of cash there. On top of the pile of cash was a note. It read “$37,748.” Not a bad take for the first night out. The Reverend felt a bit sick. As mentioned, he didn’t feel guilty, exactly, so much as entirely undeserving. Also, he knew that many of the people in the congregation donated as a penance. They felt they needed to be punished, and giving away a large chunk of cash was the best they could come up with in order to feel better about themselves. It worked out pretty well for him, but he wished he could reach those people specifically and suggest other ways to work off what they felt were their sins.

Money, after all, is not a solution. It’s fun, and handy, and is good for buying burritos and Rolexes, but it doesn’t actually solve anything on its own.

All the same, he didn’t feel guilty about taking the crowd’s money because everyone there was getting something out of it. He wasn’t stealing anything, or hurting anyone. He was actually helping people, even if he didn’t believe in the cure he was selling.

But, good God, he had a lot of other people’s sins in his bank account, collecting interest.

“My cross to bear,” he muttered to himself as he stuffed the money back into the bag and filled out a deposit slip for his bank. Later he would give the bag to Grace, and she (and one of the bigger, meaner-looking volunteers) would take it to the bank and deposit it.

The amazing thing to Reverend Milton, Cyrus, was that tomorrow night there would be another huge sack full of money. He also knew he could set up shop for at least a week before attendance would drop, along with the donations. Cyrus liked to leave them wanting more though. They’d come back next year, hearts and faces full of hope and their wallets full of cash.

He put the cash back in the safe, turned off the lights, and went to bed.


The next evening, the take was bigger. He didn’t get a chance to investigate his bag full of green sins until well after midnight, however, as a couple of the young and faithful ladies of the church stopped by his hotel room for a visit after his sermon. They left again, rosy-cheeked and giggling together, a few hours later. If someone had asked them about their high-spirits, they would claim they were full of the Lord, but that wouldn’t be strictly true. Reverend Milton was also in high spirits, and after a shower, and a quick money counting session, he packed his bags and made sure everything was ready for his early morning departure.

It was best to leave everyone wanting more.